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Day 1: Heroes, Kennings and a Ship Funeral

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🛡️ Play with your child: Kenning Forge

The day, step by step

1. 10–15 min Morning meeting and current events SL.11-12.1

   1. Question of the day: What makes someone a hero, and who decides? Students write a one-sentence answer and name one hero from life and one from a story.
   2. Current events: one volunteer gives a two-sentence summary of a local news story; the class asks one clarifying question.
   3. Preview the year: senior seminar, precalculus with money connections, environmental science and government alternate through the week.

2. 15–20 min Vocabulary and word study L.11-12.4b, L.11-12.5a

   1. Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons (about 450 to 1066), gave us short everyday words: house, bone, sea, king, ring. Write five on the board.
   2. A kenning is a compound metaphor that renames a thing. Decode three from Beowulf: whale-road (the sea), bone-house (the body), ring-giver (a king who rewards his warriors).
   3. Students invent two kennings for modern things, such as glow-slab for a phone or road-river for a freeway, and a partner decodes them.
   4. Quick check: what does battle-sweat mean? (blood) What does sky-candle mean? (the sun)

3. 30–40 min Literature and texts RL.11-12.1, RL.11-12.3

   Beowulf (Francis B. Gummere's public-domain translation or any modern translation)

   1. Set up the reading journal: date, pages or lines read, one quotation with a citation, and a two-sentence response for every reading.
   2. Context: Beowulf was composed in Old English sometime between about 700 and 1000 and survives in one manuscript. It is set in Scandinavia in the 500s. Define epic: a long narrative poem about a hero whose deeds matter to a whole people.
   3. Read the prologue aloud (about lines 1 to 52): Scyld Scefing arrives as a foundling, becomes a great king, and is sent out to sea in a treasure ship at his death.
   4. Discuss: what does the funeral tell us the Danes valued? Students list three values (generosity, strength, fame) with one line number each.

4. 40–50 min Precalculus HSF-IF.A.1

   1. Warm-up: a function assigns each input exactly one output. Test the relation {(1, 3), (2, 5), (3, 7)}: function. Test {(4, 2), (4, -2)}: not a function, because the input 4 has two outputs.
   2. Mapping diagrams: draw inputs in one oval and outputs in another. {(-1, 2), (0, 2), (1, 2)} is still a function: different inputs may share an output.
   3. Vertical line test: graph y = x² (passes) and x = y² (fails, since x = 4 pairs with y = 2 and y = -2). A circle x² + y² = 25 also fails.
   4. Money link: a store charges $2.50 per pound of apples. Is cost a function of weight? Yes, each weight gives one cost. Is weight a function of cost? Also yes here, because the rule can be reversed.
   5. Exit ticket: is {(3, 1), (5, 1), (3, 9)} a function? (No, input 3 has outputs 1 and 9.)

   Math center: a 12-card function sort (tables, graphs and mapping diagrams) with a written reason on each card.

5. 30–40 min Environmental science HS-ESS3-1

   1. Define environmental science: the study of how natural systems work and how people affect them and depend on them. It draws on biology, chemistry, Earth science, economics and government.
   2. Choose one local issue (summer heat, water use, blowing dust or traffic). In small groups, draw a web with the issue in the center and at least six links labeled science, economics or government.
   3. Example web for summer heat: more pavement (science: heat absorption) links to higher cooling bills (economics) links to city tree-planting rules (government).
   4. Share one surprising link per group and save the web in the portfolio; we return to it in the spring policy unit.

6. 25–35 min Writing W.11-12.10

   1. Diagnostic write (20 minutes): What makes a hero? Use one example from life and one from a story.
   2. Remind students to state a clear answer in the first two sentences and to explain why each example fits.
   3. Collect the drafts. They are not graded for points; they show where each writer is starting.

7. 25–35 min Independent practice and projects

   1. Finish the issue web and add two more links.
   2. Write three original kennings and their meanings in the vocabulary notebook.
   3. Draw a mapping diagram for {(-2, 4), (0, 0), (2, 4), (3, 9)} and decide if it is a function (yes).
   4. Write the first reading journal entry on the ship funeral.

   Projects: set up the senior portfolio (reading journal, vocabulary notebook, math warm-up log and writing folder) and start the mulch experiment log.

   Device time (15 min): play Kenning Forge on the Student games page.

   Today’s game: Kenning Forge

8. 5–10 min Closing reflection SL.11-12.1

   1. What is one value the Danes showed at Scyld's funeral?
   2. In one sentence, what makes a relation a function?
   3. Which link on your issue web surprised you?

Short day? Keep the kennings, the prologue reading and the function test; move the issue web to tomorrow's centers.